Devices for manual input of control signals are common in the hardware of the electronic age. Where only a few functions are involved, a mouse, a joystick or a small arrangement of push-button switches is adequate. Where more extensive signal sets are needed, the arrangement of switches may be expanded to become a keyboard of either alpha-numeric or musical form. In an application where a hand-held controller is indicated, as in many electronic games, hardware is readily available in the form of handpieces with suitable switch actuators for a few essential functions. Extensive signal sets pose obvious ergonomic difficulties in a handheld controller since the switch actuators are necessarily smaller, and must be crowded together, making operation more difficult as their number increases. Where fingers must move from one actuator to another, tactile identification becomes increasingly difficult as size is reduced and density increases. The crowding problem is solved in some applications, such as calculators, by a keyboard "shift" selection, which assigns an alternate function to each key, to increase the available number of signals. Another way to minimize the number of keys required for an extensive signal set is the so-called "tonal" keyboard, where discreet control functions are addressed by different combinations of keys, or "chords". Although either system is acceptable, keyboard "shifting" obviously introduces yet another key for each "shift" required, while chord combinations tend to be difficult to remember and consequently intimidating. Input error frequency is also higher with the tonal system.
The object of the present invention is therefore, to provide method and apparatus for maximizing the discreet signal potential of a handheld controller while using one switch actuator per finger. It is furthermore, another object of this invention to provide a systematic arrangement of functions in a pattern that an operator can most readily commit to memory. It is yet a further object of the invention to maximize the discreet signal potential of a handheld controller in a compact, inexpensively producible and convenient form.
The present invention achieves these objectives by a method of maintaining a one switch actuator per finger relationship in a two-part, handheld unit and incorporating channel selection capability through the relative positioning of the of the two parts. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, right and left handpieces have five manually operated control switches each, and are pivotally connected, face-to-face. The contactors and contacts in each face are arranged in like, rather than mirror image, patterns so that contactors in the face of each handpiece mate with contacts in the other handpiece to provide a plurality of sets of discreet signals in successive "channels". In operation, each finger is assigned to a single switch and channel selection is achieved by selecting the angular relationship of the handpieces. Thus, ten switch actuators provide ten discreet signals per channel and three, four, five or six channels will provide a total of thirty, forty, fifty or sixty discreet control signals.